Saturday, February 9, 2013

Time For A Real Policy!

Let’s be clear: Syrian lives are no more or less precious
than Congolese lives, but current developments in Syria have far greater
implications for U.S. policies around the world than current developments in
Congo. As such, the price of indecision and failure in regard to Syria is far
higher. If President Obama can’t see that, then President Obama is wrong. It’s about
time he realized that. Too much is at stake and too many lives have been lost
that could have been saved.

Friday February
8, 2013

Today’s
Death Toll:121 martyrs, including
2 women, 9 children and 1 under torture: 42 in Damascus and suburbs; 32 in
Aleppo; 21 in Homs; 12 in Daraa; 8 in Idlib; 3 in Hama; 2 in Deir Ezzor; and 1
in Raqqa (LCCs).

Points
of Random Shelling:394 points, including
19 points that were shelled by warplanes; 1 point using cluster bombs and 1
point with Phosphoric bombs, and 1 with explosive barrels; 165 points with
heavy caliber artillery, 133 points were shelled with mortar, and 83 points
with rockets (LCCs).

Clashes:135 locations (LCCs).

Rallies:
242 rallies: 54 in Hama, 51 in Deir Ezzor, 41 in Aleppo, 39 in Damascus and
Suburbs, 22 in Idlib, 19 in Daraa, 11 in Homs, 5 in Hassakeh.

Fifty
killed in Syria bombing: monitor groupThe Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights said 54 people died in Wednesday's explosion which struck their bus as
they were preparing to return home at the end of their shift, and the number
could rise further.

Syrian
Rebels Shut Down Key Damascus HighwayThe latest fighting in Damascus,
some of the heaviest to hit the city since July, began Wednesday with a series
of rebel attacks on regime checkpoints along the main road from Damascus to
northern Syria. Opposition fighters and government forces have been clashing in
the area since, and regime troops have also responded by shelling a number of
rebel-held districts nearby.

Assad's
forces try to beat back rebels closing on DamascusWar planes fired
rockets around Jobar, Qaboun and Barzeh neighborhoods, the sources said. Heavy
fighting was taking place at the Hermalleh junction on the ring road just south
of Jobar, which had been seized by the rebels. Rebel fighters based in the
eastern Ghouta region broke through government defensive lines on Wednesday,
capturing parts of the road and entering Jobar, 2 km (one mile) from security
bases in the heart of the city… "We are witnessing a 'two steps forward,
one step back' rebel strategy. It is a long way before we can say Assad has
become besieged in Damascus, but when another main road is rendered useless for
him the noose tightens and his control further erodes."

'Full-on
crisis': 5,000 refugees flee Syria daily, UN says"This is a
full-on crisis," Adrian Edwards, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) told a news briefing in Geneva. "There was a huge
increase in January alone; we're talking about a 25 percent increase in
registered refugee numbers over a single month." Since the conflict began
two years ago, more than 787,000 Syrians have registered as refugees or are
awaiting processing in the region, mainly in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey,
he said.

Disruption
of sanitation services in Syria putting children’s health at risk – UNICEFThe
agency found that in areas affected by the conflict, water supplies are only
available at one-third of pre-crisis levels, with many people having only 25
litres of water a day, compared with 75 litres when the conflict began two
years ago. “These results underline why UNICEF has prioritized assistance to
the water and sanitation sector,” said the UNICEF Representative in Syria,
Youssouf Abdel-Jelil. “This month we began an operation to ship 1 million
litres of chlorine to provide safe water for more than 10 million people, or
nearly half the national population, for three months.”

Holland
spy chief: Dutch citizens fighting in SyriaIn a rare interview with
Dutch television aired late Thursday, Rob Bertholee, head of the General
Intelligence and Security Service, said the number of Dutch nationals heading
to Syria is growing fast and he is concerned about their return home after
fighting with radical Islamic rebels in the civil war. “In my view that is very
worrying because of the combat experience they acquire, the ideological
convictions and the fact that they could become traumatized there,” Bertholee
told Dutch current affairs show Nieuwsuur.

Syria crisis leaves
medicines in short supplyMore than 70% of pharmaceutical factories
have had to shut because of the violence, estimates businessman Naji Ali-Adeeb.
Hospitals, too, are closing down, with about 27 government hospitals now not functioning.
Low-priced medicines are in short supply.

Several times a week, the Syrian
military sends aircraft over the two major camps for the internally displaced
near the Turkish border. The military tends to fly in clear weather, so those
are the days people fear the most.

The Druze community in Syria only
numbers around 700,000, out of a total population of some 21 million, and has a
history of rebelling under authoritarian leaders, rising up during the rule of
the Ottomans as well as the French. Although there are communities scattered
across the country, the bulk of the Druze, whose secretive religion is an
offshoot of Islam, live in the mountainous region of southeast Syria. In the
past couple of months, according to opposition activists, there have been more
than half a dozen anti-government protests in Sweida province, the ancestral
homeland of the Druze in the southeast that had remained relatively quiet since
the uprising began nearly two years ago. And in mid-December, rebel fighters
announced the formation of the first revolutionary military council for Sweida
province. The council coordinated the most significant battle in the Druze
region since the conflict began.

In public, Secretary of Defense Leon
Panetta warned what was left of the regime’s leadership to protect the state’s
large stockpile of chemical weapons. Privately, the U.S. intelligence community
began to worry that the Syrian officials known to have the ability to authorize
the use of that arsenal were now dead or gravely injured. A scramble then
ensued: who were the midlevel officers in charge of the Syrian Air Force and
Army units that controlled the stocks of sarin and mustard gas the Assad regime
had been compiling for decades? And who was now running the Scud missiles and
bombers that would be deployed to use these chemical weapons? According to
current and retired U.S. and Western intelligence and defense officials, U.S.
analysts began to hunt for email addresses, Twitter handles, Facebook accounts,
phone numbers, and Skype contacts for those midlevel Syrian officers. The
information was then used to deliver a pointed message: the U.S. government
knows who you are, and there will be consequences if you use or transfer
chemical weapons.

Obama's decision to ignore the
proposals of his security team on what to do in Syria is far more indicative of
a major policy failure in the White House… We know from experience in
Afghanistan and Iraq that the U.S. military cannot easily solve problems in the
Middle East, and that an impressive U.S. intervention won't necessarily serve
U.S. interests. But on Syria Obama has shifted to the opposite extreme of refusing
to use any security tool, even the covert supply of arms and grooming of
friendly forces, to ensure that Syria's implosion doesn't damage the interests
of the U.S. and its allies in the region, such as Jordan and Turkey. Putting
U.S. special forces on the ground with mainstream rebels in Syria, and giving
them the weaponry and training to take a lead in the fighting, would help
shorten the conflict, provide the U.S. with eyes and intelligence, and ensure
that Syrians don't see Al Qaeda radicals as the only people who came to help in
their time of need.

Mr. Kerry and some other
administration officials continue to talk up far-fetched hopes that the Syrian
war will be ended by a negotiated settlement in which Mr. Assad voluntarily
steps down. Even that unlikely ending would require the regime to conclude that
it cannot defeat the rebels, and for moderate forces to rise among the
fragmented opposition. As long as the United States and its allies refuse to
directly supply those forces with money, training and more powerful weapons,
that is very unlikely to happen.

The refugees’ daily needs are met by
aid agencies. The World Food Programme (WFP) distributes 15,500 tonnes of bread
every day. But as thousands of refugees keep pouring in, resources are
strained. The camp has seen 30,000 new arrivals since the beginning of the
year, spurred by increased violence in Deraa, as well as food and fuel
shortages. But money for the refugees is running short. The WFP says it has
enough to last until March. Most refugees, including the Asefs, speak of
returning home the moment Bashar Assad falls. They think he will be gone within
months. But aid workers say that such speedy returns are unlikely. “Camps do
not just disappear,” says Saba Mubaslat of Save the Children. “They live for
seven years at least.”

Much of the
commentary about Syria’s civil war suggests that the country is about to
disintegrate into competing sectarian fiefdoms, each dominated by jihadists with
a radical Islamist agenda. But during my own recent trip to one of Syria’s
“liberated” villages, I saw little evidence that post-Assad Syria will be a
failed state, nor even an Islamist one.

I can only hope that the above assertion made by my good friend Hind
Aboud Kabawat is right, even though it runs contrary to the analysis I have been
presenting here for the last few months. After all, being right is not as
important to me as Syria being well. But, if the history of the last 15-20
years taught me anything, it’s that I am seldom wrong about things Syrian, and
my good friends like Hind and so many others, are seldom right. They drown in
sentimentalities and details and fail to see the big picture. Those among them
who believe that they see the big picture are often watching an ideological
construction emanating from their own imagination and their wishes superimposed
on the reality in front of them. Syria is already a failed state, she is
broken, and the future does not augur well for putting her back together again.

For the sectarianism is real, the extremism is real, and, with few
exceptions, good leaders are nowhere to be found. We have to accept the reality
of these realities in order to be able to manage them effectively, and help
Syria emerge eventually on the scene as a viable state again.

It is here, behind
the front lines of the war against Bashar al-Assad that a new struggle is
emerging. It is a clash of ideologies: a competition where rebel brigades vie
to determine the shape of post-Assad Syria. And in recent weeks it is Jabhat
al-Nusra, a radical jihadist group blacklisted by the US as terrorists and a
group that wants Syria to be an uncompromising Islamic state governed by
sharia, that is holding sway. The group is well funded – probably through
established global jihadist networks – in comparison to moderates. Meanwhile
pro-democracy rebel group commanders say money from foreign governments has all
but dried up because of fears over radical Islamists. The effect is changing
the face of the Syrian revolution…

The Daily Telegraph
gained rare access to Hajji Rasoul, the senior al-Nusra commander – or “emir” –
who heads the civil program. “We have enough bread to help all the liberated
areas,” he said. “We have put aside enough grain to last eight months in Aleppo.

“We are subsidising
farmers so that they can prepare for the harvest and replenish the stores.”…

“We are not
al-Qaeda. Just because some of our members share in its ideas, it doesn’t mean
we are part of the group.”

Mr Rasoul would not
be drawn on the Nusra Front’s exact plan for Syria’s future. But in rebel-held
Aleppo a new sharia court is fast becoming a central power in the city. It is
shared with the three other hardline Islamist groups operating in rebel
territory: Ahrar al-Sham, Fijr al-Islam and Liwa Tawhid, though Jabhat al-Nusra
takes the lead.

It refuses to
employ judges who worked under the regime, choosing religious leaders to pass
judgments.

Some sharia
rulings, such as cutting off a hand for theft, are not operational in wartime.
But locals complain of other rigid strictures being enforced.

Several men before
the court said that their charges included “drinking alcohol” or “fraternising
with women”. All this has angered many Aleppo residents, most of whom are
moderate Muslims.

Note 1: Fear from getting sucked into another conflict in the
Middle East has paved the way to the rise of extremist groups in Syria, ones
who are gradually taking over and controlling the pace and nature of the
revolution. Now it’s fear over having western funds and aid ending up with
these radical groups that have dried funds and weapons going to moderate ones.
So long as policies adopted by western leaders vis-à-vis the conflict in Syria continue
to be based on fear of action the situation in Syria will keep getting worse. It’s
time western leaders started betting on action as the way forward on Syria.

Note 2: To say that Jabhat Al-Nusra has no plans for being
involved in the political processes in Syria after the fall of Assad is clearly
misguided. The leaders of JAN have every intention of pushing for consolidating
their hold on certain areas through involvement in local political processes,
including provision of services. They genuinely want to push for the
establishment of a caliphal system in Syria. They are open about it, they are
serious about it, and they are getting more organized by the day, as western
leaders continue to weigh their options, and opposition leaders continue to
bicker.

Observers tend to forget in this regard that many of the top ideologues
in the international Jihadi networks, especially Al-Qaeda, are Syrians. Now those
Syrian Jihadi leaders have a golden opportunity to push for the establishment
of their vision on the soil of their own homeland, across the border from
Israel, and in the thick of the Sunni-Shiite battle-zone, does anyone seriously
think that they will let it go to waste?

The only way this situation could be mitigated at this stage is by providing
support to moderate and secular rebel groups so they can continue to have a
stake in the outcome, and carve out their own territories in the mix of it all.
Syria is fragmenting, and Emirates are being actively carved out, but not all
of them have to be dominated by Islamist groups or pro-Assad militias, secular
forces could still maintain a presence, even in Sunni-majority areas, and we
need them to if we have to have any real chance of putting the pieces back
together.

While it may not be
necessary to impose a Libya-style no-fly zone (NFZ), it is imperative to keep
the threat on the table and to be willing, if required, to carry it out. An
obvious alternative to an NFZ is to provide man-portable air-defense systems
(MANPADs). But the legal and prudential restrictions are considerable. The use
of these systems would require a stronger partnership between the FSA and key
regional allies than currently exists.

In addition to
weaponry, the FSA needs training, resources, and intelligence support. It
currently lacks a sound military strategy. Only the Americans, working together
with Arab partner nations, have the requisite diplomatic and military resources
to help the FSA develop this capacity.

This policy does
entail the risk of unintended consequences. Some arms may flow to al Qaeda.
Some groups may take American aid and then turn against the United States. But
inaction also carries risks. The current hands-off policy has hardly succeeded
in preventing extremists from acquiring arms. It has simply given them time and
incentive to develop their own independent sources of external support.

By establishing
itself as the most important international player shaping the conflict inside
Syria, the United States will lay the groundwork for helping the Syrian people
forge a genuine national dialogue on the nature of their transition. This should
include the creation of a national platform that brings together Syria's
diverse ethnic and religious communities -- including Sunnis, Shiites, Alawis,
Christians, and Kurds, as well as tribal and religious figures -- to discuss
the future of the country. In particular, it should include Alawis who enjoy
wide legitimacy within their community, but who are also willing to talk about
a post-Assad Syrian regime.

At the same time,
the United States should bring together key international and regional powers
to create an international steering group. This group -- including China,
Russia, Turkey, and key Arab and European states -- should agree on a number of
basic goals for the transition and set benchmarks for their effective
implementation. The immediate focus should be on protecting civilians,
minorities, and vulnerable groups through the creation of an international
stabilization force; addressing humanitarian issues; safeguarding chemical and
other unauthorized weapons; and supporting Syrian-led transitional governance
and transitional justice efforts.

For this to
succeed, Obama must first persuade Russia to abandon its demand that Assad play
a role in the transition. If Moscow remains defiant, however, the president
must be willing to pursue an independent policy -- while still keeping the door
open for Russian President Vladimir Putin to eventually join the international
consensus.

Lt. Gen. Abdel-Jabbar Al-Oqaidi addresses a rally in Qatirji
Neighborhood, Aleppo City: he reminds people that the revolution started as
a nonviolent protest movement, and that it was only the violent crackdown by
the regime that compelled people like him to defect and take up arms. He also
admits that there are small groups out there that have committed violations,
and that FSA leadership has been slow to punish them because they were trying
to avoid getting into side-battles. But he promises that this will change soon
and that violators will be held accountable http://youtu.be/4xJaUaBi1Xw

Meanwhile, in the majority-Kurdish neighborhood of Al-Ashrafiyeh,
Kurdish rebels affiliated with PYD, a Syrian Kurdish group inspired by PKK
ideology, clashed with pro-regime militias http://youtu.be/5nGiVKi__DE
The clashes from the point of view of
regime supporters http://youtu.be/LbcE6RvApko

A missile falls on Massaken Hanano, destroying a passing vehicle
and killing her occupants as well as passersby http://youtu.be/q8yLSaduEfo

In Saraqib, Idlib Province, the rivalry between Islamist and
secular-leaning units is growing by the day. In today’s rally Islamist groups
interrupted a rally chanting “God, Syria, Freedom,” and began chanting “Our
leader forever is our Master Muhammad [the Prophet].” Secular demonstrators
carried the striped green independence flags adopted by most revolutionaries,
but Islamists carried black and white flags carrying the basic Islamic
testament of faith: “there is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of
God.” Eventually, a brief scuffle broke out between some Islamists and secular
demonstrators which ended with few Islamists tearing down and stomping on one
of the green flags. At this point, secular demonstrators began chanting “Unity,
liberty, civil state.” The rally continued without any further incident http://youtu.be/R_1xdQX33pM

In nearby Ma’arat Al-Nouman, the battle for control of the city
continues, this clip shows a tank operated by rebels pounding tanks operated by
regime loyalists http://youtu.be/hGN_vq2g5Kw

About the Author

Ammar Abdulhamid is a liberal Syrian pro-democracy activist whose anti-regime activities led to his exile in September of 2005. He currently lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife, Khawla Yusuf, and their children, Oula (b.1986) and Mouhanad (b. 1990). He is the founder of the Tharwa Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to democracy promotion. His personal website and entries from his older blogs can be accessed here.